Effects of display curvature and hand length on smartphone usability

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of display curvature and hand length on smartphone usability, which was assessed in terms of grip comfort, immersive feeling, typing performance, and overall satisfaction. A total of 20 younger individuals with the mean (SD) age of 20.8 (2.4) yrs were divided into three hand-size groups (small: 8, medium: 6, large: 6). Two smartphones of the same size were used – one with a flat display and the other with a side-edge curved display. Three tasks (watching video, calling, and texting) were used to evaluate smartphone usability. The smartphones were used in a landscape mode for the first task, and in a portrait mode for the other two. The flat display smartphone provided higher grip comfort during calling (p = 0.008) and texting (p = 0.006) and higher overall satisfaction (p = 0.0002) than the curved display smartphone. The principal component regression (adjusted R2 = 0.49) of overall satisfaction on three principal components comprised of the remaining measures showed that the first principal component on grip comfort was more important than the other two on watching experience and texting performance. It is thus necessary to carefully consider the effect of display curvature on grip comfort when applying curved displays to hand-held devices such as smartphones.